The Kodak Empire: Getting ready to have a "Going Out Of Business" sale?

We might as well face it: the Eastman Kodak Company is virtually dead.

For years, it has been laying off tens of thousands of people in the Rochester area alone, having an adverse effect on our local economy. For years, Kodak has been shedding different “unprofitable” divisions of the company to create a “meaner and leaner” organization. Most people warily suggested that Kodak was downsizing enough so that it could be more easily sold off.

For years, its executives have been voting themselves pay raises and constructing their golden parachutes so that they can comfortably and safely bail out when the end comes. Tant pis to Rochester!

Today, the D&C announced that Kodak would be discontinuing production of its desktop inkjet printers. They will continue to make the ink for them, however. Somehow, this will help to save the company, by continuing to make parts for a machine that they will no longer produce! What part of Oz do these people come from?

But then, Kodak’s executives have been making incredibly stupid decisions and mistakes for over a quarter of a century now. It’s a wonder that their shareholders didn’t have them committed to an institution a long time ago!

200 jobs will be cut by this action. This comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that Kodak would be cutting 1,000 jobs. Cutting jobs has been a weekly occurrence at Kodak even before the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to reorganize!

A more cynical reply is that Kodak’s executives filed for Chapter 11 to give themselves more time to scarf up as much money as they can before the company goes belly-up.

It’s not sure how the loss of these 200 jobs will affect Rochester, because most of Kodak’s products are manufactured in Communist China.

It has become rather commonplace for fine, patriotic American big businessmen to whine about the evils of Communism and collective bargaining from the labor unions. So they negotiate with Communist regimes and third-world dictatorships to locate their factories in those countries, and export American jobs to them. The workforce in those countries are employed for slave-labor wages, from which these fine, patriotic American big businessmen derive huge profits. It is from these profits that they fund the campaigns of equally fine, patriotic American politicians, who whine about the evils of Communism and collective bargaining from the labor unions! If elected, these fine, patriotic, American politicians seek to get their benefactors tax breaks for creating jobs…in those evil Communist countries and third-world dictatorships!

Unfortunately, none of them choke on the stench of their own hypocrisy.

And, oddly enough, it didn’t save the day for the Eastman Kodak Company! Apparently, they didn’t make selling out American Labor to foreign countries profitable enough to keep the boat afloat.

Furthermore, Kodak’s executives are asking for an additional four months extension to come up with a reorganization plan. They haven’t come up with one in the last eight months, and their creditors are getting itchy.

Failing that, it’s Chapter 7 for the Eastman Kodak Company: total liquidation and taking flight into oblivion. Unfortunately, this appears to be where Kodak is headed.

What will that mean for Rochester?

Well, there are still a few thousand Rochesterians who work for Kodak, so they’ll be out of jobs. They can compete with thousands of other unemployed and underemployed people for minimum wage jobs that the county and Citygov take such “pride” in creating. This will also have a negative impact on our local economy. There will be the majestic Kodak Office Building to look at, as long as it lasts; are there any other local businesses large enough to take it over, or will it go under the wrecking ball in a few years? There are various other, smaller buildings that bear the “Eastman” name; as they are still occupied, there is little fear that they will be bulldozed in the near future. As for the Kodak retirees, who knows what their rights will be after Kodak disappears?

Kodak has been dying for a long time, and it seems that the greatest shock to Rochester will be psychological. Kodak made Rochester the “Imaging Capital of the World,” and Rochester seemed only to exist to cater to Kodak. With Kodak’s demise ( long foreseen and long ignored ), Rochester will need to reinvent itself, if it is up to the task!

Contributors

Click on a blogger to see just their posts.

Rich Gardner has been writing about the history, culture and waterways of Upstate New York for years. His articles have appeared in U.S. and Canadian publications, and one book, Learning to Walk. He is an alumnus of Brighton High School and SUNY Geneseo. He operates Upstate Resume & Writing Service in Brighton and recently moved to Corn Hill, where he is already involved in community projects. "I enjoy the 'Aha!' moments of learning new things, conceptual and literal. City living is a great teacher."

Ken Warner grew up in Brockport and first experienced Rochester as a messenger boy for a law firm in Midtown Tower. He recently moved downtown into a loft on the 13th floor of the Temple Building with a view of the Liberty Poll and works in the Powers Building overlooking Rochester’s four corners as Executive Director for UNICON, an organization devoted to bringing economic development to the community. He hopes to use his Rochester Blog to share his observations from these unique views of downtown.